Sorry for the delay, we were busy preparing our Halloween costume as the NAtional Debt. We talk about today's dud Russia news and a genuinely good piece in the Atlantic about Third Way weirdos. We also ask, what if Obama was the Joker...
By the way please buy Felix's sister's book: http://www.vineleavespress.com/the-walmart-book-of-the-dead-by-lucy-biederman.html

@user-146336542: I love how you're tacking on the Russia investigation to actual, provable, material concerns with the election process. "Russian sympathies" is a nebulous accusation that can only be raised this way - in comment sections. The Cold War paranoia appeals to you for some damn reason, so you're willing to counter all criticisms by the ridiculous "but this is bigger than Watergate" assertion, as if it's some sort of counterargument.

@eatinskullz: Reminds me of when I was in central Wisconsin and asked for a bag at a gas station. And the older white lady looks at me and says, "You mean a bag?" with that typical Fargo accent. I grew out of it myself in my teens.

@user-993140302: Soda is Wisconsin. Pop is Illinois and Minnesota. Source: I grew up in Washington county (with stints in Wawautosa and Watertown), my mom's from Chicago, and I've lived in MN for years.

Ok, last point. The Russian data hacks of state voter data (not voting machines) and interference combined with Trump's obsession with the popular vote combined with Jill Stein's justified recount in the 2016 "swing states" combined with the insane primary processes by both the Rs and Ds argue for a harsh look at how elections are run and secured in the US. We do a horrible job, and it can lead to hundreds of thousands of former independents unable to vote for Sanders in New York to JEB! and Kathryn Harris purging black people from the Florida voter rolls in 2000. The type of disenfranchisement that Republicans have been pursuing for the last 20 years have also made our system extremely vulnerable in addition to simply disenfranchising people. The Democrats largely go along with it. The DSA wing or Sanders wing or the left need to understand and embrace the threat a foreign power like Russia poses to our elections because it's the same threat that the major parties pose to it as well.

@user-146336542: I think at this point there’s enough actual evidence (which Greenwald and Scahill justifiably want more of) that Russia was trying to influence the Trump campaign AND the Trump campaign was looking to get influenced by Russia. Blagojevich never sold that fucking golden Senate seat, but he sure as hell tried, and that’s why he’s in jail now. I think the fear of the Chapo crowd is that proof of collusion (a nebulous, non-legal term) will let the #resistance crowd claim that Clinton’s victory was stolen rather than coming to terms that she was an atrocious candidate who ran an even worse campaign. But both things can be true. Clinton might have won without the data breaches and social-media advertising. Bernie almost certainly would have won regardless of this foreign bumbling. We can recognize the seriousness of the Russia investigation, and still dunk on Clinton, still dunk on centrists, and most importantly, still push for progressive/socialist/sane policies.

@user-146336542: I get the hypocrisy. Were FB ads and Twitter bots worse than 20 years of FoxNews or the MSM favoring right-wing cranks over the most reasoned/reasonable leftists? Why are the careful actions to open the arctic-circle for drilling by corporate psychopath Tillerson above board while the comically inept spy-missions of Page and Papadopoulos are treated like treason? They’re good questions, and good to see the hypocrisy, but we’re also witnessing something way bigger than Watergate unfold, and it’s ok to let your jaw hit the floor in disbelief sometimes instead of being jaded.

I think you're off-base downplaying the Russia investigation. Just like I think Greenwald and Scahill are off-base as well. At a certain point, nitpicking this is a bit like concern trolling. Don't let the Russia-hysteria of the #resistance lead you to dismiss it. Yeah, Podesta's brother shows this isn’t a Republican issue, but the sheer number of guys connected to this stuff in Trump's campaign is not a coincidence. You had the foreign lobbyist types like Manafort, white supremacists like Bannon, and oil guys like Tillerson that all had clear Russian sympathies. The first and second groups crossed some serious lines at the same time Mercer's Cambridge Analytica and the Russian government flooded social media of the dumbest Republicans with really effective propaganda.

Does anybody else hear a sense of futility in these guys now, particularly Matt? I don't need them to help me keep hope alive, but the jaded dismissive quality of a lot of their discussions these days doesn't engage me much.